Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-01-20

Redoutable has armor of more than IA
inches in thickness upon her belt, and
of 81 inches upon her central battery.
She also carries 25-ton guns-four in
her central battery, two in barbette
half towers, and two on revolving plat.
forms at the bow and stern respectively.
She also carries eight light 5a inch guns.
This ship generally resembles her sue
cessors, the Devastation aud the Foud.
royant (by the same designer), in SO far
as that her batteries fire past sides, with
great tumble home. The Redoutable is
full.rigged ship, and, neverth eless,
steams l4I knots per hour. There is
one particular in which the Devastation
and the Foadroyant, like her as they
are in general design, differ materially
from the Redoutable. | refer to the
armament. The former two ships
each carry four 34.centimetre As ton
guns in the main.deck battery, in lieu
OF the four 25.ton gunsof the Redoutabte
The Amiral Duperre differs materi.
ally in type from the three ships just
discussed. She has complete belt of
very thick armor from stem to stern
greatest thickness % inches, tapering
to 10 inches at the extremlties, with a
thick deck q inches) at the top of the
belt in the usual manner. But above
this belt there is no armored main deck
battery, as in the other ships, the chief
armament of four Aston guns being car
ried in four elevated barbette towers,
two of which are we'll for ward, and pro-
ject considerably to enable their guns
to act efficiently as bow cbasers. and at
the same time to command all round
the broadside and right astern. To
facilitate this the sides of the ship have
great tumble home. The other two
towers are situated at the middle line OF
the ship, one near the stern and the
other further forward, between the main
and the mizzsn masts. The main deck,
although without armor defence, is not
without armament, as it carries fourteen
81 inch 60.pounder rifed breach-loaders.
Ii will be observed from her description
that the most characteristic feature of
this great ship of more than 10, 900 tons
is the absence of any guns protected by
armor. The barbette towers, it is true,
are armored with l2-inch plates, and
the main deck guns are under the pro-
lection of the thin plating of the ships
side, which latter is of little or no avail,
however, against the armament of other
first.class ships. Practically the whole
of the Duperre's guns are unprotected.
Two other powerful ships of the
French navy, closely resembling the
Amiral Duperre, are the Amiral Baudin
and the Formidable. They are of 81
feet more beam than the Duperre (and
therefore probably have much larger
stability, and their displacement ex-
ceeds hers by 300 tons. Their arma-
ments chiefly differ from hers in the EN-
ployment OF three guns of IS tons each
in their towers, in lieu of the four guns
of 4S tons of The Duperre. The Nep.
tune, Hoche, Magenta and Marceau are
four other powerful ships, the principal
armament of each consisting of four guns
of 50 tons, carried in towers, with the
exception of the Hoche, which has two
of her principal guns of 2S tons each
| only.
Two ships, the Caiman and Indompta
BILE, although of only 200 tons, carry
very thick armor (l93 inches), and as a
matter of fact carry also guns of the
heaviest type (75-tons). There are two
other vesseles of the same description,
the Terrible and Requina. Careful notes
should be taken of these four steel.bu
vesseles, which add greatly 10 the power
of France. Each carries tive of the very
powerful guns just mentioned, and
steams at speed of l4a knots. In the
same category Of thickly-armed ships
the French have yet one other ship,
the Furieux, of $500 tons. Her armor
is III inches thick in places, and she is
armed with two Aston guns. Her speed
is IL knots. The Tonnant has the same
armor and armament, but she is of nearly
1000 tons less displace ment, drawing
much less water and steaming only at 10
knots per hour.
ave may sum up the facts relating to
the larger class of French ironclads which
will rank among the efficient ships of
1000 tons and upward by saying that in
addition to these ships, there are on
the efficient list the Colbert, Friedland,
Marengo, Ocean, Surveillante and
Meroine.
The French navy further comprises
thirteen armer- plated cruisers, of which
four have lately been dropped out of
some official lists. There are nine com.
pleted coast.guard ironclads and eight
armored gunboats in the French navy
Alta